30 research outputs found
Geomorphological effectiveness of floods to rework gravel bars:insight from hyperscale topography and hydraulic modelling
Bars are key morphological units in river systems, fashioning the sediment regime and bedload transport processes within a reach. Reworking of these features underpins channel adjustment at larger scales, thereby acting as a key determinant of channel stability. Despite their importance to channel evolution, few investigations have acquired spatially continuous data on bar morphology and sedimentāsize to investigate bar reworking. To this end, four bars along a 10 km reach of a wandering gravelābed river were surveyed with Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), capturing downstream changes in slope, bed material size and channel planform. Detrended standard deviations (Ļz) were extracted from TLS point clouds and correlated to underlying physically measured median graināsize (D50), across a greater range of Ļz values than have hitherto been reported. The resulting linear regression model was used to create a 1 m resolution median graināsize map. A fusion of airborne LiDAR and opticalāempirical bathymetric mapping was used to develop reachāscale Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) for rapid twoādimensional hydraulic modelling using JFlowĀ® software. The ratio of dimensionless shear stress over critical shear stress was calculated for each raster cell to calculate the effectiveness of a range of flood events (2.33ā100 year recurrence intervals) to entrain sediment and rework bar units. Results show that multiple bar forming discharges exist, whereby frequent flood flows rework tail and backāchannel areas, whilst much larger, less frequent floods are required to mobilise the coarser sediment fraction on bar heads. Valley confinement is shown to exert a primary influence on patterns of bar reworking. Historical aerial photography, hyperscale DEMs and hydraulic modelling are used to explain channel adjustment at the reach scale. The proportion of the bar comprised of more frequently entrained units (tail, back channel, supraāplatform) relative to more static units (bar head) exerts a direct influence upon geomorphic sensitivity
Denial at the top table: status attributions and implications for marketing
Senior marketing management is seldom represented on the Board of Directors nowadays, reflecting a deteriorating status of the marketing profession. We examine some of the key reasons for marketingās demise, and discuss how the status of marketing may be restored by demonstrating the value of marketing to the business community. We attribute marketingās demise to several related key factors: narrow typecasting, marginalisation and limited involvement in product development, questionable marketing curricula, insensitivity toward environmental change, questionable professional standards and roles, and marketingās apparent lack of accountability to CEOs. Each of these leads to failure to communicate, create, or deliver value within marketing. We argue that a continued inability to deal with marketingās crisis of representation will further erode the status of the discipline both academically and professionally
BIOLEACHING OF COBALT AND ZINC FROM PYRITE ORE IN RELATION TO CALCITIC GANGUE CONTENT
Bioleaching of a pyrite ore containing high concentrations of cobalt (0.1%) and zinc (0.065%) was affected by small amounts of calcitic gangue (from 0.01 to 1.01%). Results from an air-lift percolator and from Erlenmeyer flask experiments show that a small percentage of calcite raises the pH and arrests the growth of the acidophilic bacterium Thiobacillus ferrooxidans. In percolator experiments, when calcite is completely removed by the continuous addition of small quantities of acid, and the pH of the liquor becomes acid, the micro-organism begins to grow and to bio-oxidize the pyrite ore. The growth of T. ferrooxidans shows different lag phase spans (from 13 to 190 days) depending on carbonate dissolution. The metals Fe, Zn and Co are released into the leaching solution together at different rates after a lag-time which depends on calcite concentrations in pyrite gangue. Metal ratios in the mineral bulk are different from those in the liquor, Zn dissolving 5 times more readily than Co. Bioleaching rates for metal removal from pyrite are higher in percolator (for Fe, from 5 to 15 mg/l/h) than in flask experiments (from 0.5 to 2 mg/l/h), but the lag phases are shorter (from 2 to 65 days). The differences between the two systems are related to calcite dissolution and gypsum precipitation
ATP synthase: from single molecule to human bioenergetics
ATP synthase (FoF1) consists of an ATP-driven motor (F1) and a H+-driven motor (Fo), which rotate in opposite directions. FoF1 reconstituted into a lipid membrane is capable of ATP synthesis driven by H+ flux. As the basic structures of F1 (Ī±3Ī²3Ī³Ī“Īµ) and Fo (ab2c10) are ubiquitous, stable thermophilic FoF1 (TFoF1) has been used to elucidate molecular mechanisms, while human F1Fo (HF1Fo) has been used to study biomedical significance. Among F1s, only thermophilic F1 (TF1) can be analyzed simultaneously by reconstitution, crystallography, mutagenesis and nanotechnology for torque-driven ATP synthesis using elastic coupling mechanisms. In contrast to the single operon of TFoF1, HFoF1 is encoded by both nuclear DNA with introns and mitochondrial DNA. The regulatory mechanism, tissue specificity and physiopathology of HFoF1 were elucidated by proteomics, RNA interference, cytoplasts and transgenic mice. The ATP synthesized daily by HFoF1 is in the order of tens of kilograms, and is primarily controlled by the brain in response to fluctuations in activity
Orai1- and Orai2-, but not Orai3-mediated ā(CRAC) is regulated by intracellular pH
Three Orai (Orai1, Orai2, and Orai3) and two stromal interaction molecule (STIM1 and STIM2) mammalian protein homologues constitute major components of the store-operated Ca2+ entry mechanism. When co-expressed with STIM1, Orai1, Orai2 and Orai3 form highly selective Ca2+ channels with properties of Ca2+ release-activated Ca2+ (CRAC) channels. Despite the high level of homology between Orai proteins, CRAC channels formed by different Orai isoforms have distinctive properties, particularly with regards to Ca2+-dependent inactivation, inhibition/potentiation by 2-aminoethyl diphenylborinate and sensitivity to reactive oxygen species. This study characterises and compares the regulation of Orai1, Orai2- and Orai3-mediated CRAC current (ICRAC) by intracellular pH (pHi). Using whole-cell patch clamping of HEK293T cells heterologously expressing Orai and STIM1, we show that ICRAC formed by each Orai homologue has a unique sensitivity to changes in pHi. Orai1-mediated ICRAC exhibits a strong dependence on pHi of both current amplitude and the kinetics of Ca2+-dependent inactivation. In contrast, Orai2 amplitude, but not kinetics, depends on pHi, whereas Orai3 shows no dependence on pHi at all. Investigation of different Orai1āOrai3 chimeras suggests that pHi dependence of Orai1 resides in both the N-terminus and intracellular loop 2, and may also involve pH-dependent interactions with STIM1.Grigori Y. Rychkov, Fiona H. Zhou, MelissaK.Adams, StuartM.Brierley, Linlin Ma, and Greg J. Barrit