Late Devonian to Early Carboniferous palaeomagnetic poles from the Armorican Massif, France

In order to test plate tectonic hypotheses for the Hercynian orogeny in western Europe, Late Devonian and Cambro-Ordovician redbeds and volcanics have been palaeomagnetically studied. The Late Devonian redbeds show nearly univectorial remanent magnetizations during stepwise thermal, chemical and alternating field demagnetization and yield a pole position at 19.8° N, 144.2° E. All three Cambro-Ordovician units studied yielded characteristic directions of magnetization that are interpreted as remagnetizations of Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous age on the basis of negative fold tests, similarities with the directions of the Late Devonian redbeds, reset K/Ar ages of 345 MA, or the occurrence of significant high- temperature magnetizations. A comparison of a mean Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous pole for all four formations (28.1° N, 146.4° E, dp = 3.87°, dm = 7.50°) from the Armorican Massif with contemporaneous poles from stable (‘extra-Hercynian’) Europe indicates that there was little or no separation between Hercynian and stable Europe in that time. A significant separation between the Armorican Massif and Gondwanaland, on the other hand, suggests that an intervening middle Palaeozoic ocean existed which subsequently was consumed by subduction somewhere to the south of the Armorican Massif. Those high-temperature directions from the Cambro- Ordovician redbeds and volcanics that are relatively well grouped are interpreted as original Cambro-Ordovician magnetizations. They show shallow inclinations and north-westerly declinations, but are not sufficiently substantiated to give more than the tentative interpretation that their palaeolatitudes also are roughly in agreement with the data from stable Europe for that time.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75659/1/j.1365-246X.1979.tb01026.x.pd

Sociology and postcolonialism: another 'missing' revolution?

Sociology is usually represented as having emerged alongside European modernity. The latter is frequently understood as sociology's special object with sociology itself a distinctively modern form of explanation. The period of sociology's disciplinary formation was also the heyday of European colonialism, yet the colonial relationship did not figure in the development of sociological understandings. While the recent emergence of postcolonialism appears to have initiated a reconsideration of understandings of modernity, with the development of theories of multiple modernities, I suggest that this engagement is more an attempt at recuperating the transformative aspect of postcolonialism than engaging with its critiques. In setting out the challenge of postcolonialism to dominant sociological accounts, I also address `missing feminist/queer revolutions', suggesting that by engaging with postcolonialism there is the potential to transform sociological understandings by opening up a dialogue beyond the simple pluralism of identity claims

Innovation and HRM : absences and politics

This article analyses the role of HRM practices in the implementation of an innovative cross-functional approach to new product development (concurrent engineering, CE) in Eurotech Industries. Contrary to CE methodology stipulations, and despite supportive conditions, HRM received scant attention in the implementation process. Organizational power and politics were clearly involved in this situation, and this article explores how their play created such HRM &lsquo;absences&rsquo;. The article builds on a four-dimensional view of power in order to provide a deeper understanding of the embedded, interdependent and political nature of HRM practice and innovation.<br /

Cholesterol Alters the Orientation and Activity of the Influenza Virus M2 Amphipathic Helix in the Membrane

The influenza virus M2 amphipathic helix (M2AH) alters membrane curvature in a cholesterol-dependent manner, mediating viral membrane scission during influenza virus budding. Here, we have investigated the biophysical effects of cholesterol on the ability of an M2AH peptide to manipulate membrane properties. We see that the ability of the M2AH to interact with membranes and form an α-helix is independent of membrane cholesterol concentration; however, cholesterol affects the angle of the M2AH peptide within the membrane. This change in membrane orientation affects the ability of the M2AH to alter lipid order. In lowcholesterol membranes, the M2AH is inserted near the level of the lipid head groups, increasing lipid order, which may contribute to generation of the membrane curvature. As the cholesterol content increases, the M2AH insertion becomes flatter and slightly deeper in the membrane below the lipid headgroups, where the polar face can continue to interact with the headgroups while the hydrophobic face binds cholesterol. This changed orientation minimizes lipid packing defects and lipid order changes, likely reducing the generation of membrane curvature. Thus, cholesterol regulates M2 membrane scission by precisely modulating M2AH positioning within the membrane. This has implications for the understanding of many of amphipathic-helix-driven cellular budding processes that occur in specific lipid environments

The Smiling Abbot: Rediscovering a Unique Medieval Effigial Slab

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Archaeological Journal on 06/11/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00665983.2017.1366705The article reports on a newly re-discovered fragment of a recumbent effigial slab commemorating Abbot Hywel (‘Howel’), most likely an abbot of the Cistercian house of Valle Crucis, near Llangollen (Denbighs.). The slab was probably carved very early in the fourteenth century, and could have covered the abbot’s burial place. The stone was dislocated and fragmented at an unknown point in the abbey’s history, and most likely removed from the site during the nineteenth-century clearance of the abbey ruins. It was briefly reported on in 1895 and has been lost to scholarship subsequently. If indeed from Valle Crucis, the stone is the only known effigial slab commemorating a Cistercian abbot from Wales, and a rare example from Britain. Given that few similar Cistercian abbatial monuments have been identified from elsewhere, the ‘Smiling Abbot’, although only a fragment, is a significant addition to the known corpus of later medieval mortuary monuments. The article discusses the provenance, dating, identification and significance of the monument, including the abbot’s distinctive smile. The stone sheds new light on mortuary and commemorative practice at Valle Crucis Abbey in the early fourteenth century

KAPAO First Light: the design, construction and operation of a low-cost natural guide star adaptive optics system

We present the instrument design and first light observations of KAPAO, a natural guide star adaptive optics (AO) system for the Pomona College Table Mountain Observatory (TMO) 1-meter telescope. The KAPAO system has dual science channels with visible and near-infrared cameras, a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, and a commercially available 140-actuator MEMS deformable mirror. The pupil relays are two pairs of custom off-axis parabolas and the control system is based on a version of the Robo-AO control software. The AO system and telescope are remotely operable, and KAPAO is designed to share the Cassegrain focus with the existing TMO polarimeter. We discuss the extensive integration of undergraduate students in the program including the multiple senior theses/capstones and summer assistantships amongst our partner institutions. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0960343

Modeling Therapy Resistance in <i>BRCA1/2</i>-Mutant Cancers.

Although PARP inhibitors target BRCA1- or BRCA2-mutant tumor cells, drug resistance is a problem. PARP inhibitor resistance is sometimes associated with the presence of secondary or "revertant" mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 Whether secondary mutant tumor cells are selected for in a Darwinian fashion by treatment is unclear. Furthermore, how PARP inhibitor resistance might be therapeutically targeted is also poorly understood. Using CRISPR mutagenesis, we generated isogenic tumor cell models with secondary BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Using these in heterogeneous in vitro culture or in vivo xenograft experiments in which the clonal composition of tumor cell populations in response to therapy was monitored, we established that PARP inhibitor or platinum salt exposure selects for secondary mutant clones in a Darwinian fashion, with the periodicity of PARP inhibitor administration and the pretreatment frequency of secondary mutant tumor cells influencing the eventual clonal composition of the tumor cell population. In xenograft studies, the presence of secondary mutant cells in tumors impaired the therapeutic effect of a clinical PARP inhibitor. However, we found that both PARP inhibitor-sensitive and PARP inhibitor-resistant BRCA2 mutant tumor cells were sensitive to AZD-1775, a WEE1 kinase inhibitor. In mice carrying heterogeneous tumors, AZD-1775 delivered a greater therapeutic benefit than olaparib treatment. This suggests that despite the restoration of some BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene function in "revertant" tumor cells, vulnerabilities still exist that could be therapeutically exploited. Mol Cancer Ther; 16(9); 2022-34. ©2017 AACR