1707, 2007, and the Unionist turn in Scottish history

This article reviews the latest research on the making of the Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union of 1707 and unionism in modern Scotland. Stimulated by the tercentenary of the union, but running counter to the popular mood at the time of that anniversary, many of the recent publications exhibit a novel and sympathetic interest in principled support for union. Using Christopher Whatley's The Scots and the union (2006) and Colin Kidd's Union and unionisms (2008) as starting points, the article shows how the new histories differ from earlier work, while also identifying the interdisciplinary roots of the ‘unionist turn’ in Scottish history

Development of comprehensive liquid chromatography (LC x LC) approaches for the analysis of complex copolymer structures

Knowledge of the exact composition and purity of advanced copolymers is of utmost importance given their influence on the final physical properties. The development of analytical techniques to examine these impurities is therefore crucial with respect of large industrial productions. A comprehensive two-dimensional HPLC separation technique with a slow size exclusion (SEC) separation in the first dimension and a fast reversed phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) separation in the second dimension was therefore developed. For the SEC dimension, two 2 mm internal diameter columns were packed with a PLgel Mixed-D packing and in the RPLC dimension a Kinetex (C18) column packed with solid core/porous shell particles were applied. The optimized setup allowed for successful qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis of various types of in-house prepared copolymers, including block, graft and palm-tree types of structures

Development of comprehensive liquid chromatography (LC x LC) approaches for the analysis of complex copolymer structures

Knowledge of the exact composition and purity of advanced copolymers is of utmost importance given their influence on the final physical properties. The development of analytical techniques to examine these impurities is therefore crucial with respect of large industrial productions. A comprehensive two-dimensional HPLC separation technique with a slow size exclusion (SEC) separation in the first dimension and a fast reversed phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) separation in the second dimension was therefore developed. For the SEC dimension, two 2 mm internal diameter columns were packed with a PLgel Mixed-D packing and in the RPLC dimension a Kinetex (C18) column packed with solid core/porous shell particles were applied. The optimized setup allowed for successful qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis of various types of in-house prepared copolymers, including block, graft and palm-tree types of structures

Electrically induced tunable cohesion in granular systems

Experimental observations of confined granular materials in the presence of an electric field that induces cohesive forces are reported. The angle of repose is found to increase with the cohesive force. A theoretical model for the stability of a granular heap, including both the effect of the sidewalls and cohesion is proposed. A good agreement between this model and the experimental results is found. The steady-state flow angle is practically unaffected by the electric field except for high field strengths and low flow rates.Comment: accepted for publication in "Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment

Non-Revenue Water Management in Ghana: The Opportunities and Challenges

Management of water resources has become a major challenge in Ghana. Efforts to address the situation through serious water sector reforms have provided some improvements, with some serious challenges still persisting globally. This paper takes a view of water management systems in Ghana by focusing on some specific issues such as water production, water sales, total cost and their relationship with the non-revenue water (NRW). The paper adopts “correlation theory” of observations from 2003 to 2009 using Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing, Ghana data. The findings reveal that, one major problem confronting water resources management in Ghana among others is lack of proper institutional structures and enforcement agencies. The study also revealed that total revenue and total cost of water provision have negative but moderate correlation with NRW but does not give any indication of how good this relationship might be. Again, it was found that where there are aspects of institutional structures, there are limited enforcement agencies for monitoring to ensure compliance. Keywords: Non- revenue water, water management, opportunities, challenges, Ghan

Quantification of Feed Crop Supply and Demand in Idaho, 2003 – 2021

The expansion of the dairy industry in Idaho over the past two decades has impacted the supply and demand for feed crops in the State and Western U.S. This article presents a method for quantifying state level feed crop supply and demand on an annual basis. Results show that demand has exceeded supply for corn grain for the entire study period of 2003 to 2021, while supply and demand are largely at parity for alfalfa hay, corn silage, and barley. The extent to which feed demand is met by local or external supply has implications for risk management decisions for feed crop stakeholders in properly accounting for local production and external market risks

An engineered Tetrahymena tRNA(Gln) for in vivo incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins by nonsense suppression

A new tRNA, THG73, has been designed and evaluated as a vehicle for incorporating unnatural amino acids site-specifically into proteins expressed in vivo using the stop codon suppression technique. The construct is a modification of tRNAGln(CUA) from Tetrahymena thermophila, which naturally recognizes the stop codon UAG. Using electrophysiological studies of mutations at several sites of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, it is established that THG73 represents a major improvement over previous nonsense suppressors both in terms of efficiency and fidelity of unnatural amino acid incorporation. Compared with a previous tRNA used for in vivo suppression, THG73 is as much as 100-fold less likely to be acylated by endogenous synthetases of the Xenopus oocyte. This effectively eliminates a major concern of the in vivo suppression methodology, the undesirable incorporation of natural amino acids at the suppression site. In addition, THG73 is 4-10-fold more efficient at incorporating unnatural amino acids in the oocyte system. Taken together, these two advances should greatly expand the range of applicability of the in vivo nonsense suppression methodology