Conformational selection mechanism governs oxygen ligation to H-NOX proteins

H-NOX proteins are at present the only structural models available for the study of the ligand binding affinity and selectivity of soluble guanylate cyclase, the physiological receptor of nitric oxide. The oxy complex and resting state structures of two bacterial H-NOX proteins of markedly different oxygen affinity, but of quite similar sequence, were studied by molecular dynamics simulations at 300K and 400K. Unexpectedly, the different O2 affinity was found to be reflected in differences of the resting states structures. A conformation containing a pre-formed oxygen-binding cage is the most populated in the resting state equilibrium ensemble of the only successful O2 binder, Tt H-NOX at 300K, suggesting that conformational selection governs the interaction

As you weed, so shall you reap: on the origin of algaculture in damselfish

Within their territories, damselfish cultivate particular algae for consumption. A recent study in BMC Evolutionary Biology shows extensive variation among and within fish species in the composition of these algal 'gardens', varying from monocultures to cultures of mixed species, and in the mode of cultivation. This fish-algal agriculture may provide insight into the early stages of domesticatio

Consumer medicines information : an international perspective

Consumer medicines information is increasingly relied upon to inform and empower consumers regarding their medicines. Legislation and guidelines are now in operation in the US, European Union (EU) countries and Australasia. The lack of an evidence base has led to a variety of approaches to written information provision across the three continents and each has apparent advantages and disadvantages. This review compares consumer medicines information in the three continents and examines the strengths and weaknesses of each system. It also includes an outline of research conducted by Professor Raynor’s team on the impact of the EU legislation. This will be of particular interest in Malta, in view of the imminent membership of the EU.peer-reviewe

On the manu-kautilya norms of taxation: An interpretation using laffer curve analytics.

High tax-rates erode their own bases, and thereby adversely affect tax-revenues. This general idea, which is referred to as the Laffer Curve, can be traced back to Kautilya's famous treatise on economics, Arthasastra, and even before that, to the ancient Indian book of laws called the Manusmriti. This paper considers the basic tenets of taxation prescribed in these texts and attempts to interpret the tax-rates proposed for different economic activities using Laffer Curve analytics. In particular, an attempt is made to interpret the core rate of taxation proposed in these works, viz., one-sixth of the tax-base. The implicit assumption in prescribing moderate tax-rates appears to indicate the value judgement that in most economic activities, the negative substitution effect of increasing taxation overpowers the positive income effect, if any, at rather low tax-rates.Taxation

A review of length-weight relationships of fishes from Greek marine waters

This paper presents 649 length-weight relationships gathered from literature pertaining to 83 fish species, belonging to 34 families, throughout Greek marine waters. The value of the slope b ranged from 1.667 for Cepola macrophthalma to 3.707 for Mullus barbatus. The mean value of b was 2.989 (SD=0.339) and did not differ significantly from 3(t-test, p<0.05). The median value of b was 3.058 and 50% of the b values ranged between 2.900 and 3.186

DOLPHIN: the design and initial evaluation of multimodal focus and context

In this paper we describe a new focus and context visualisation technique called multimodal focus and context. This technique uses a hybrid visual and spatialised audio display space to overcome the limited visual displays of mobile devices. We demonstrate this technique by applying it to maps of theme parks. We present the results of an experiment comparing multimodal focus and context to a purely visual display technique. The results showed that neither system was significantly better than the other. We believe that this is due to issues involving the perception of multiple structured audio sources

MultiVis: improving access to visualisations for visually impaired people

This paper illustrates work undertaken on the MultiVis project to allow visually impaired users both to construct and browse mathematical graphs effectively. We start by discussing the need for such work, before discussing some of the problems of current technology. We then discuss Graph Builder, a novel tool to allow interactive graph construction, and Sound Bar which provides quick overview access to bar graphs

The role of emotion in design reflection

Reflection on design processes performed by designers is called design reflection. In our view, this kind of reflection aims at answering essential questions like “Is my design answering the stakeholder concerns?”, “Am I solving the essential problems or am I wasting time on irrelevant aspects?”, “Does the result feel satisfactory or are further iterations necessary?”, “Does my design obey the rules of conceptual integrity and aesthetics?”, and “Is my design process appropriate for the problem?”. Design reflection is important since it can improve the design process and the product being designed (Reymen, 2001). It can also help the designers to learn from their experiences, i.e. their thoughts and feelings, and to improve their professional capabilities. Recent design research recognised the need for stimulating reflection, including the development of supporting methods (Badke-Schaub et al., 1999; Reymen, 2001; Schön, 1983; and Valkenburg, 2000). Reflection is, however, often interpreted as evaluating the design rationally, giving no explicit place for emotions. For answering the questions mentioned above, we state that both feelings and thoughts are important. We advocate a balanced approach in which both rationality and emotions play a role. The underlying idea is that we hope that balanced answers to essential questions lead to balanced design decisions and to a balanced design process. The goal of this paper is to explore the possibilities of letting emotions play a role in design related reflection processes. The exploration is partially based on our experiences with a\ud method that supports reflection on design processes; a description and discussion of the method can be found in (Reymen, 2001). This paper introduces the concepts emotion, reflection, and design reflection and with exploring their relations. Based on these insights, the paper continues with describing a prescriptive model of a reflection process in which emotions of designers and stakeholders play an important role

SoundBar: exploiting multiple views in multimodal graph browsing

In this paper we discuss why access to mathematical graphs is problematic for visually impaired people. By a review of graph understanding theory and interviews with visually impaired users, we explain why current non-visual representations are unlikely to provide effective access to graphs. We propose the use of multiple views of the graph, each providing quick access to specific information as a way to improve graph usability. We then introduce a specific multiple view system to improve access to bar graphs called SoundBar which provides an additional quick audio overview of the graph. An evaluation of SoundBar revealed that additional views significantly increased accuracy and reduced time taken in a question answering task