New long-term mass-balance series for the Swiss Alps

In this study we present 19 new or re-analysed series of glacier-wide seasonal mass balance for the Swiss Alps based on direct measurements. The records partly start around 1920 and continue until today. Previously unpublished and unevaluated observations of point winter and annual balance are compiled from various sources and archives. These highly valuable datasets have not yet been consistently evaluated and were thus unavailable to the scientific community. Using distributed modelling for spatial interpolation and extrapolation and homogenization of the point measurements, we infer continuous series of area-averaged mass balance. The results are validated against independent decadal ice volume changes from photogrammetric surveys. Six of the new seasonal series cover 60 years and more and add a substantial amount of information on the variations of regional glacier mass change. This will strengthen the worldwide collection of glacier monitoring data, especially for the data-sparse period before the 1980s. We compare our results to existing long-term series and present an updated assessment of mass-balance variability and glacier sensitivity throughout the European Alps

Moral Panics and Punctuated Equilibrium in Public Policy: An Analysis of the Criminal Justice Policy Agenda in Britain

How and when issues are elevated onto the political agenda is a perennial question in the study of public policy. This article considers how moral panics contribute to punctuated equilibrium in public policy by drawing together broader societal anxieties or fears and thereby precipitating or accelerating changes in the dominant set of issue frames. In so doing they create opportunities for policy entrepreneurs to disrupt the existing policy consensus. In a test of this theory, we assess the factors behind the rise of crime on the policy agenda in Britain between 1960 and 2010. We adopt an integrative mixed-methods approach, drawing upon a combination of qualitative and quantitative data. This enables us to analyze the rise of crime as a policy problem, the breakdown of the political-institutional consensus on crime, the moral panic that followed the murder of the toddler James Bulger in 1993, the emergence of new issue frames around crime and social/moral decay more broadly, and how—in combination—these contributed to an escalation of political rhetoric and action on crime, led by policy entrepreneurs in the Labour and Conservative parties. \u

Carbohydrates as chiral selectors for capillary electrophoresis of racemic drugs

Maltodextrins, complex mixtures of linear analogues of cyclodextrins, were studied as chiral electrolyte additives in CE and found to provide highly efficient chiral separations of a broad range of acidic and basic compounds. Although the carbohydrate used is the major determinant in obtaining enantioseparation, further optimization through variation of secondary parameters, e.g. the composition of the background electrolyte or the capillary dimensions, is shown to be possible. The introduction of additional elements of chirality through the buffer component or via secondary chiral polymeric electrolyte modifiers were shown to affect selectivity as well as efficiency, leading to a significant improvement of separation in some instances, while in other conditions comigration of enantiomers was observed, suggesting multiple chiral recognition mechanisms may not proceed independently from one another.status: publishe

Chiral analysis of basic drugs by oligosaccharide-mediated capillary electrophoresis

A low-dextrose-equivalent maltodextrin was investigated for application as an enantioselective electrolyte modifier in direct chiral capillary electrophoresis. A wide range of basic racemic drug substances belonging to different pharmacological groups (antiarrhythmic, anticholinergic, antifungal, antihistaminic, antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs) could be baseline resolved. The background electolyte cation and the anion were found to affect the enantioselectivity significantly. In addition, a definite effect of background electrolyte anion chirality was observed. The use of a single enantiomer background electrolyte could either enhance or completely abolish maltodextrin-mediated chiral separation and in one particular case (aminopromazine) was even sufficient to generate complete enantiomeric resolution.status: publishe

Geometric and healing laws in simple stochastic models of fracture in a sputtering process

We investigated two simple models of two-dimensional square lattice fracture under sputtering process conditions extending a previously studied model by Ausloos and Kowalski [Phys. Rev. B 45, 12 830 (1992)]. The models differ by the particle displacement rules during the fracture. Healing of the medium is observed in both models. This effect implies the formation of several thresholds during sputtering process fracture. They are distributed as a size-dependent power law. An avalanche like exponent is also obtained. We study this phenomenology within scaling arguments of classical percolation theory and mean-field arguments

Determination of artesunate by capillary electrophoresis with low UV detection and possible applications to analogues

A capillary electrophoretic method with low ultraviolet (185 nm) detection is presented for the analysis of both artesunate, a hemisuccinate ester analogue of artemisinin, and succinic acid without prior derivatization. Artesunate is easily separated from its ester hydrolysis products, succinic acid and dihydroartemisinin, with the use of phosphate electrolytes at neutral pH, and this makes the method suitable for ester stability monitoring or quality control purposes. Sensitivity is shown to be strongly influenced by electrolyte and sample matrix ionic concentration ratio, which illustrates the need for careful selection of the electrolyte when direct injection of isotonic sample solutions is considered. Alkaline derivatization, which is known to generate charged compounds, is found to be useful for the analysis of neutral artemisinin derivatives, as exemplified by experiments with dihydroartemisinin.status: publishe

Comparative Study of the Continuous and Batch Thermal Processing of MgB2 Wires

The last stage of the manufacturing process requires complex reactive diffusion formation process of MgB2 in the presence of SiC nanoparticles. Continuous thermal processing was adopted to produce long length MgB2 in situ wires with a homogeneous mixture of micron-sized Mg, nanosized B, as well as SiC dopant powders. This process has enabled the formation of MgB2 superconducting compound in a relatively short time. Traditional superconductor batch processing requires the wire batch to be heat treated in dedicated large furnaces. Additionally, such a batch process requires controllable slow heating-up, dwelling, and cooling down procedures to ensure uniformity of the superconducting properties along the wire length. Such a prolonged reactive diffusion process does require lower dwelling temperature and can potentially prevent full utilization of the doping materials, resulting in less effective pinning centers formation. On the other hand, continuous wire thermal processing enables rapid formation of the doped MgB2 with full utilization of the dopant. Also, in the continuous process, the moving thermal front brings complex dynamics to Mg-B, C-B, Mg-Si interaction during MgB2 formation processes. The manuscript presents a comparative study of the reactive diffusion kinetics, the microstructural formation of the doped MgB2 compound, and their Jc(B, T) characteristics