Elective affinities of the Protestant ethic : Weber and the chemistry of capitalism

Peer reviewedPostprin

Investigation of the porosity of ceramic composite materials based on hydroxyapatite and biodegradable polyesters

In the present study, we obtained porous composite materials based on biodegradable polymers and hydroxyapatite (HA) ceramics with different mass ratio of components. Special properties of porous materials allow to solve the most complicated problems in the field of bone tissue engineering. The characteristics of micro- and mesoporosity were investigated using low-temperature nitrogen adsorption. An experiment on the formation of a calcium-phosphate layer on the surface of samples in a SBF-solution was performed. The surface morphology of the composites throughout the experiment was investigated by SEM

Disseminated Microsporidiosis Due to Encephalitozoon hellem: Pulmonary Colonization, Microhematuria, and Mild Conjunctivitis in a Patient with AIDS

Four genera of microsporidia have been associated with disease in humans, which predominantly affects immunocompromised persons. Systemic infection with a newly characterized microsporidian species, Encephalitozoon hellem, was recently reported in a patient with AIDS. This article describes a second patient with AIDS and disseminated E. hellem infection. In this case the parasite was detected in sputum, urine, and conjunctival swab specimens. Apart from recurrent mild conjunctivitis and asymptomatic microhematuria, the patient had no findings or symptoms that could be related to this parasite. Specifically, no microsporidian-associated pulmonary pathology was documented. Detection of E. hellem in the patient's sputum may have epidemiological implications in that this finding suggests transmission of microsporidia by the aerosol route. Because the patient died of unrelated complications, it remains unknown whether he was an asymptomatic carrier of microsporidia or whether microhematuria heralded early microsporidian disease, with the onset of cellular damage in the urinary trac

Tradition and Innovation in Classical Sociology: Tenth Anniversary Report of JCS

Perhaps the very idea of ‘classical sociology’ is a contradiction in terms; sociology was originally that social science peculiarly concerned with the study of the processes of modernization and the condition of modernity, that is, with the critical examination of ‘post-traditional’ developments and hence ‘post-classical’ forms of social organization. Its concerns have broadened subsequently, but the focus of sociology remains on the exploration of the nature and development of social structure and social action in the post-traditional world. In the nineteenth century, sociologists invented new concepts and experimented with new methods to study the emergence of unprecedented social phenomena and the rise of a type of society that was variously called ‘modern society’, ‘industrial society’, and ‘capitalist society’. In the twentieth century, there was a further elaboration of key sociological concepts, and it became increasingly popular to proclaim the rise of yet another form of society, described as ‘post-industrial society’, ‘late modern society’, ‘post-modern society’, or ‘network society’. In the current century, the idea of globalization has swept everything before it, leading to the notion that ‘society’ has now been replaced by flows and networks of people, objects, and ideas. With the transition from traditional to modern societies, the integrative power of Gemeinschaft began to compete with the systemic power of Gesellschaft; with the transition from modern to late modern societies, the local horizons of our Lebenswelt appear to be increasingly shaped by the deterritorialized networks of the Weltgesellschaft. If we are ‘post-traditional’, surely we are also ‘post-classical’. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many contemporary sociologists have some difficulty accepting the very idea of classical sociology

Peptide Inhibitors Targeting the \u3cem\u3eNeisseria gonorrhoeae\u3c/em\u3e Pivotal Anaerobic Respiration Factor AniA

Neisseria gonorrhoeae causes the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea, which is highly prevalent worldwide and has a major impact on reproductive and neonatal health. The superbug status of N. gonorrhoeae necessitates the development of drugs with different mechanisms of action. Here, we focused on targeting the nitrite reductase AniA, which is a pivotal component of N. gonorrhoeae anaerobic respiration and biofilm formation. Our studies showed that gonococci expressing AniA containing the altered catalytic residues D137A and H280A failed to grow under anaerobic conditions, demonstrating that the nitrite reductase function is essential. To facilitate the pharmacological targeting of AniA, new crystal structures of AniA were refined to 1.90-Å and 2.35-Å resolutions, and a phage display approach with libraries expressing randomized linear dodecameric peptides or heptameric peptides flanked by a pair of cysteine residues was utilized. Biopanning experiments led to the identification of 29 unique peptides, with 1 of them, C7-3, being identified multiple times. Evaluation of their ability to interact with AniA using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and computational docking studies revealed that C7-3 was the most promising inhibitor, binding near the type 2 copper site of the enzyme, which is responsible for interaction with nitrite. Subsequent enzymatic assays and biolayer interferometry with a synthetic C7-3 and its derivatives, C7-3m1 and C7-3m2, demonstrated potent inhibition of AniA. Finally, the MIC50 value of C7-3 and C7-3m2 against anaerobically grown N. gonorrhoeae was 0.6 mM. We present the first peptide inhibitors of AniA, an enzyme that should be further exploited for antigonococcal drug development

Semiconductor thermal and electrical properties decoupled by localized phonon resonances

Thermoelectric materials convert heat into electricity through thermally driven charge transport in solids, or vice versa for cooling. To be competitive with conventional energy-generation technologies, a thermoelectric material must possess the properties of both an electrical conductor and a thermal insulator. However, these properties are normally mutually exclusive because of the interconnection of the scattering mechanisms for charge carriers and phonons. Recent theoretical investigations on sub-device scales have revealed that silicon membranes covered by nanopillars exhibit a multitude of local phonon resonances, spanning the full spectrum, that couple with the heat-carrying phonons in the membrane and collectively cause a reduction in the in-plane thermal conductivity$-$while, in principle, not affecting the electrical properties because the nanopillars are external to the pathway of voltage generation and charge transport. Here this effect is demonstrated experimentally for the first time by investigating device-scale suspended silicon membranes with GaN nanopillars grown on the surface. The nanopillars cause up to 21 % reduction in the thermal conductivity while the electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient remain unaffected, thus demonstrating an unprecedented decoupling in the semiconductor's thermoelectric properties. The measured thermal conductivity behavior for coalesced nanopillars and corresponding lattice-dynamics calculations provide further evidence that the reductions are mechanistically tied to the phonon resonances. This finding breaks a longstanding trade-off between competing properties in thermoelectricity and paves the way for engineered high-efficiency solid-state energy recovery and cooling

Design and construction of a carbon fiber gondola for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope

We introduce the light-weight carbon fiber and aluminum gondola designed for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope. SPIDER is designed to measure the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation with unprecedented sensitivity and control of systematics in search of the imprint of inflation: a period of exponential expansion in the early Universe. The requirements of this balloon-borne instrument put tight constrains on the mass budget of the payload. The SPIDER gondola is designed to house the experiment and guarantee its operational and structural integrity during its balloon-borne flight, while using less than 10% of the total mass of the payload. We present a construction method for the gondola based on carbon fiber reinforced polymer tubes with aluminum inserts and aluminum multi-tube joints. We describe the validation of the model through Finite Element Analysis and mechanical tests.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures. Presented at SPIE Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V, June 23, 2014. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 914

Using coherent phonons for ultrafast control of the Dirac node of SrMnSb\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e

SrMnSb2 is a candidate Dirac semimetal whose electrons near the Y point have the linear dispersion and low mass of a Dirac cone. Here we demonstrate that ultrafast, 800-nm optical pulses can launch coherent phonon oscillations in Sr0.94Mn0.92Sb2, particularly an Ag mode at 4.4 THz. Through first-principles calculations of the electronic and phononic structure of SrMnSb2, we show that high-amplitude oscillations of this mode would displace the atoms in a way that transiently opens and closes a gap at the node of the Dirac cone. The ability to control the nodal gap on a subpicosecond timescale could create opportunities for the design and manipulation of Dirac fermions

280 GHz Focal Plane Unit Design and Characterization for the SPIDER-2 Suborbital Polarimeter

We describe the construction and characterization of the 280 GHz bolometric focal plane units (FPUs) to be deployed on the second flight of the balloon-borne SPIDER instrument. These FPUs are vital to SPIDER's primary science goal of detecting or placing an upper limit on the amplitude of the primordial gravitational wave signature in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by constraining the B-mode contamination in the CMB from Galactic dust emission. Each 280 GHz focal plane contains a 16 x 16 grid of corrugated silicon feedhorns coupled to an array of aluminum-manganese transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers fabricated on 150 mm diameter substrates. In total, the three 280 GHz FPUs contain 1,530 polarization sensitive bolometers (765 spatial pixels) optimized for the low loading environment in flight and read out by time-division SQUID multiplexing. In this paper we describe the mechanical, thermal, and magnetic shielding architecture of the focal planes and present cryogenic measurements which characterize yield and the uniformity of several bolometer parameters. The assembled FPUs have high yields, with one array as high as 95% including defects from wiring and readout. We demonstrate high uniformity in device parameters, finding the median saturation power for each TES array to be ~3 pW at 300 mK with a less than 6% variation across each array at one standard deviation. These focal planes will be deployed alongside the 95 and 150 GHz telescopes in the SPIDER-2 instrument, slated to fly from McMurdo Station in Antarctica in December 2018

Pointing control for the SPIDER balloon-borne telescope

We present the technology and control methods developed for the pointing system of the SPIDER experiment. SPIDER is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to detect the imprint of primordial gravitational waves in the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. We describe the two main components of the telescope's azimuth drive: the reaction wheel and the motorized pivot. A 13 kHz PI control loop runs on a digital signal processor, with feedback from fibre optic rate gyroscopes. This system can control azimuthal speed with < 0.02 deg/s RMS error. To control elevation, SPIDER uses stepper-motor-driven linear actuators to rotate the cryostat, which houses the optical instruments, relative to the outer frame. With the velocity in each axis controlled in this way, higher-level control loops on the onboard flight computers can implement the pointing and scanning observation modes required for the experiment. We have accomplished the non-trivial task of scanning a 5000 lb payload sinusoidally in azimuth at a peak acceleration of 0.8 deg/s$^2$, and a peak speed of 6 deg/s. We can do so while reliably achieving sub-arcminute pointing control accuracy.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, Presented at SPIE Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes V, June 23, 2014. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE Volume 914