Faraday effect revisited: sum rules and convergence issues

This is the third paper of a series revisiting the Faraday effect. The question of the absolute convergence of the sums over the band indices entering the Verdet constant is considered. In general, sum rules and traces per unit volume play an important role in solid state physics, and they give rise to certain convergence problems widely ignored by physicists. We give a complete answer in the case of smooth potentials and formulate an open problem related to less regular perturbations.Comment: Dedicated to the memory of our late friend Pierre Duclos. Accepted for publication in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical

DOMAIN STRUCTURE OF THE MAJOR ALLERGEN OVOMUCOID BY SOLUTION NMR

poster abstractThe interest in the ovomucoid protein is twofold. First it is a protein of interest for medical studies due to its potent allergen activity. Second, as a special variety of glycosylated protein (Kazal family), it allows us to explore the role of protein glycosylation in protein-membrane interactions for a particular, model case. The nature, location, and orientation of the glycosyl groups are determining factors in proteinmembrane interactions and therefore are critical to biological processes involving glycosylated proteins. We have found that as opposed to other glycosylated proteins, ovomucoid does not induce ionic currents across lipid membranes. This behavior likely has a structural cause, yet very little overall structural data is available. In this study, we use solution NMR spectroscopy to determine the structure of the chicken ovomucoid protein, taking advantage of the division of its structure into three stable domains of 55-65 amino acids each. We present results on the protein purification steps and isolation of separate domains suitable for solution NMR spectroscopy. We then present NMR results acquired on a 500 MHz spectrometer, and we show atomic models of individual domains and of overall protein structure from analysis of NMR spectra

Simulación de acelerogramas compatibles con espectros de energía sísmica

En este artículo se presenta un estudio sobre el espectro de energía inducida en las estructuras sometidas a acciones sísmicas. En primer lugar se discuten las variables que influyen en dicho espectro, con base en las relaciones que guarda el mismo con otras medidas de la acción sísmica. En segundo lugar, se presenta un procedimiento que permite estimar un espectro suavizado de diseño, basado en la regresión sobre los registros de las dos componentes horizontales de 56 sismos diferentes. Finalmente, se describe un método para simular acelerogramas compatibles con un espectro de energía prescrito y se presenta un ejemplo que ilustra la utilidad del método para la evaluación del daño sísmico.A study on the spectrum of seismic energy input in structures is presented. The factors that determine this spectrum are first dicussed, upon the basis of the relationships linking it with other characteristics of earthquake excitation. A procedure for estimating a desigp smoothed spectrum based upon a regression analysis of the two horizontal components of 56 strong motion records is then presented. Finally, a method for simulating accelerograms compatible with . a specified energy-input spectrum is described, together with an example which shows the applicability of the method to damage evaluation purposes.Peer Reviewe

Cognition, emotion and action: persistent sources of parent–offspring paradoxes in the family business

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore inductively the unique paradoxical tensions central to family business (FB) and to analyze how FB's members face these tensions and their implications in the personal and professional realms. Design/methodology/approach: A multiple-case study with 11 parent–offspring dyads from Portuguese FBs was conducted putting the focus on the micro-level interactions. Findings: The slopes of roles and relationality in FBs produces three persistent sets of tensions around cognition, emotion and action. These tensions exist in a paradoxical state, containing potentiality for synergy or trade-off. Originality/value: Our study is the first to empirically demonstrate that paradoxical tensions between parent and offspring are interrelated, by emphasizing the uniqueness of FB as a paradoxical setting and offering insights to negotiating of these singular paradoxes.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Vitamin E Promotes the Inverse Hexagonal Phase via a Novel Mechanism: Implications for Antioxidant Role

Vitamin E (α-tocopherol) and a range of other biological compounds have long been known to promote the HII (inverted hexagonal) phase in lipids. Now, it has been well established that purely hydrophobic lipids such as dodecane promote the HII phase by relieving extensive packing stress. They do so by residing deep within the hydrocarbon core. However, we argue from X-ray diffraction data obtained with 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoylphosphatidylcholine (POPE) and 1,2-dioleoylphosphatidylcholine (DOPE) that α-tocopherol promotes the HII phase by a different mechanism. The OH group on the chromanol moiety of α-tocopherol anchors it near the aqueous interface. This restriction combined with the relatively short length of α-tocopherol (as compared to DOPE and POPE) means that α-tocopherol promotes the HII phase by relieving compressive packing stress. This observation offers new insight into the nature of packing stress and lipid biophysics. With the deeper understanding of packing stress offered by our results, we also explore the role that molecular structure plays in the primary function of vitamin E, which is to prevent the oxidation of polyunsaturated membrane lipids

Description of two cultivated and two uncultivated new Salinibacter species, one named following the rules of the bacteriological code: Salinibacter grassmerensis sp. nov.; and three named following the rules of the SeqCode: Salinibacter pepae sp. nov., Salinibacter abyssi sp. nov., and Salinibacter pampae sp. nov.

Current -omics methods allow the collection of a large amount of information that helps in describing the microbial diversity in nature. Here, and as a result of a culturomic approach that rendered the collection of thousands of isolates from 5 different hypersaline sites (in Spain, USA and New Zealand), we obtained 21 strains that represent two new Salinibacter species. For these species we propose the names Salinibacter pepae sp. nov. and Salinibacter grassmerensis sp. nov. (showing average nucleotide identity (ANI) values < 95.09% and 87.08% with Sal. ruber M31T, respectively). Metabolomics revealed species-specific discriminative profiles. Sal. ruber strains were distinguished by a higher percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids and specific N-functionalized fatty acids; and Sal. altiplanensis was distinguished by an increased number of glycosylated molecules. Based on sequence characteristics and inferred phenotype of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), we describe two new members of the genus Salinibacter. These species dominated in different sites and always coexisted with Sal. ruber and Sal. pepae. Based on the MAGs from three Argentinian lakes in the Pampa region of Argentina and the MAG of the Romanian lake Fără Fund, we describe the species Salinibacter pampae sp. nov. and Salinibacter abyssi sp. nov. respectively (showing ANI values 90.94% and 91.48% with Sal. ruber M31T, respectively). Sal. grassmerensis sp. nov. name was formed according to the rules of the International Code for Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP), and Sal. pepae, Sal. pampae sp. nov. and Sal. abyssi sp. nov. are proposed following the rules of the newly published Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes Described from Sequence Data (SeqCode). This work constitutes an example on how classification under ICNP and SeqCode can coexist, and how the official naming a cultivated organism for which the deposit in public repositories is difficult finds an intermediate solution.This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities projects PGC2018-096956-B-C41, RTC-2017-6405-1 and PID2021-126114NB-C42, which were also supported by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). RRM acknowledges the financial support of the sabbatical stay at Georgia Tech and HelmholzZentrum München by the grants PRX18/00048 and PRX21/00043 respectively also from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. This research was carried out within the framework of the activities of the Spanish Government through the “Maria de Maeztu Centre of Excellence” accreditation to IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB) (CEX2021-001198). KTK’s research was supported, in part, by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Award No. 1831582 and No. 2129823). IMG. AC and HLB were financially supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-1559, within PNCDI III. HLB acknowledges Ocna Sibiului City Hall (Sibiu County, Romania) for granting the access to Fără Fund Lake and A. Baricz and D.F. Bogdan for technical support during sampling and sample preparation. MBS thanks Dominion Salt for their assistance in sample Lake Grassmere. MELL acknowledges the financial support of the Argentinian National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Grant CONICET-NSFC 2017 N° IF-2018-10102222-APN-GDCT-CONICET) and the National Geographic Society (Grant # NGS 357R-18). BPH was supported by NASA (award 80NSSC18M0027). TV acknowledges the “Margarita Salas” postdoctoral grant, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Universities, within the framework of Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, and funded by the European Union (NextGenerationEU), with the participation of the University of Balearic Islands (UIB)

"They’re not going to do all the tasks we do": Understanding trust and reassurance towards a UV-C disinfection robot

Increasingly, robots are adopted for routine tasks such as cleaning and disinfection of public spaces, raising questions about attitudes and trust of professional cleaners who might in future have robots as teammates, and whether the general public feels reassured that disinfection is carried out by robots. In this paper, we present the results of a mixed- methods user study exploring how trust and reassurance by both professional cleaners and members of the public is affected by the use of a UV-C robot and information about its performance disinfecting a simulated classroom. The results show a range of insights for those designing and wishing to deploy UV-C robots: we found that trust and reassurance is affected by information about the UV-C robots’ task performance, with more information coinciding with significantly more agreement to be able to judge that the robot is doing a good job, although care should be taken when designing information about task performance to avoid misinterpretation. Overall, the results suggest a generally positive picture regarding the use of UV- C disinfecting robots and that cleaning professionals would be happy to have them as their teammates; however, there were also some concerns regarding the effect on less-skilled jobs. Taken together, our results provide considerations to make UV- C robots welcomed by cleaning teams as well as to provide reassurance to space users

Noncoding deletions reveal a gene that is critical for intestinal function.

Large-scale genome sequencing is poised to provide a substantial increase in the rate of discovery of disease-associated mutations, but the functional interpretation of such mutations remains challenging. Here we show that deletions of a sequence on human chromosome 16 that we term the intestine-critical region (ICR) cause intractable congenital diarrhoea in infants1,2. Reporter assays in transgenic mice show that the ICR contains a regulatory sequence that activates transcription during the development of the gastrointestinal system. Targeted deletion of the ICR in mice caused symptoms that recapitulated the human condition. Transcriptome analysis revealed that an unannotated open reading frame (Percc1) flanks the regulatory sequence, and the expression of this gene was lost in the developing gut of mice that lacked the ICR. Percc1-knockout mice displayed phenotypes similar to those observed upon ICR deletion in mice and patients, whereas an ICR-driven Percc1 transgene was sufficient to rescue the phenotypes found in mice that lacked the ICR. Together, our results identify a gene that is critical for intestinal function and underscore the need for targeted in vivo studies to interpret the growing number of clinical genetic findings that do not affect known protein-coding genes

The Love of Money and Pay Level Satisfaction: Measurement and Functional Equivalence in 29 Geopolitical Entities around the World

Demonstrating the equivalence of constructs is a key requirement for cross-cultural empirical research. The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to assess measurement and functional equivalence or invariance using the 9-item, 3-factor Love of Money Scale (LOMS, a second-order factor model) and the 4-item, 1-factor Pay Level Satisfaction Scale (PLSS, a first-order factor model) across 29 samples in six continents (N = 5973). In step 1, we tested the configural, metric and scalar invariance of the LOMS and 17 samples achieved measurement invariance. In step 2, we applied the same procedures to the PLSS and nine samples achieved measurement invariance. Five samples (Brazil, China, South Africa, Spain and the USA) passed the measurement invariance criteria for both measures. In step 3, we found that for these two measures, common method variance was non-significant. In step 4, we tested the functional equivalence between the Love of Money Scale and Pay Level Satisfaction Scale. We achieved functional equivalence for these two scales in all five samples. The results of this study suggest the critical importance of evaluating and establishing measurement equivalence in cross-cultural studies. Suggestions for remedying measurement non-equivalence are offered