Structure of a cupin protein Plu4264 from Photorhabdus luminescens subsp. laumondii TTO1 at 1.35 Å resolution

Proteins belonging to the cupin superfamily have a wide range of catalytic and noncatalytic functions. Cupin proteins commonly have the capacity to bind a metal ion with the metal frequently determining the function of the protein. We have been investigating the function of homologous cupin proteins that are conserved in more than 40 species of bacteria. To gain insights into the potential function of these proteins we have solved the structure of Plu4264 from Photorhabdus luminescens TTO1 at a resolution of 1.35 Å and identified manganese as the likely natural metal ligand of the protein

Carrying water may be a major contributor to disability from musculoskeletal disorders in low income countries: a cross-sectional survey in South Africa, Ghana and Vietnam

Background: The Sustainable Development Goals include commitments to end poverty, and promote education for all, gender equality, the availability of water and decent work for all. An important constraint is the fact that each day, many millions of women and children, and much less frequently men, carry their household’s water home from off-plot sources. The burden of fetching water exacerbates gender inequality by keeping women out of education and paid employment. Despite speculation about the potential health impacts of fetching water, there is very little empirical evidence. We report the first large study of the health impacts of carrying water on women and children. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in South Africa, Ghana and Vietnam during 2012. It investigated water carrying methods and health status. Because areas of self-reported pain were correlated we undertook factor analysis of sites of reported pain, to interpret patterns of pain reporting. Regression analysis using Generalised Estimating Equations (GEE) investigated water carrying as a risk factor for general health and self-reported pain. Findings: People who previously carried water had increased relative risk of reporting pain in the hands (RR 3.62, 95%CI 1.34-9.75) and upper back (RR 2.27, 95%CI 1.17-4.40), as did people who currently carry water (RR hand pain 3.11, 95%CI 1.34-7.23; RR upper back pain 2.16, 95%CI 1.25-3.73). The factor analysis results indicate that factor 1, ‘axial compression’, which is correlated with pain in the head and upper back, chest/ribs, hands, feet and abdomen/stomach, is associated with currently (0.30, 95%CI 0.17-0.43) or previously (0.21, 95%CI 0.01-0.42) carrying water. Factor 2, ‘soft tissue strain’, which is correlated with pain in the neck, shoulders/arms, lower back and hips/pelvis or legs, is marginally negatively associated with currently (-0.18, 95%CI-0.32 - -0.04) carrying water. The factor ‘axial compression’ was more strongly associated with carrying water containers on the head. Conclusions: Participants who reported a history of current or past water carrying more frequently reported pain in locations most likely to be associated with sustained spinal axial compression in the cervical region. Given the fact that cervical spinal conditions are globally one of the more common causes of disability, our findings suggest that water carrying, especially by head loading is a major contributing factor in musculoskeletal disease burden in low income countries. Our findings support the proposed indicator for monitoring SDG6.1: “Percentage of population using safely managed drinking water services at home“ (our emphasis)

Live Ambience and Homestead Away From Home: Social Media Use and Dependency by Visiting Chinese Students in the United States

This study investigates social media dependency relations among Chinese college students during their three-month study abroad sojourn in the United States. Data were collected using a multimethod approach of ethnography, field observation, and in-depth interviews. Inspired by the lens of media system dependency (MSD) theory, the analysis focuses on the diverse goals and motivations that drive student behavior in social media engagement, as well as various contextual factors leading students to adapt and transition to the U.S. social networking sites (SNS), and the subsequent outcomes. The findings indicate that task-driven and assignment-centered goals dominate social media use, and that multidimensional aspects of interaction pervade student engagement with different social networking applications. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of the overall findings

Gaining instructional design expertise through self-designing, using, and evaluationg a performance support system

In order to gain instructional design (ID) expertise, the author self-designs and uses an instructional design performance support system (IDPSS). The recursive, dynamical, and systematic process of designing, using, and evaluating the IDPSS has effectively engaged the author in learning ID knowledge and skills. Three tools are designed and used: the consilience of learning theory tool, the ID competency tool, and the design-based research (DBR) tool. The media format includes not only computer software, such as Excel and OneNote, but also traditional pen and paper. The author evaluates and synthesizes relevant ID knowledge, and creates specific models guiding her practice. She tries to create her own instructional theory model through systematically drawing useful implications from various learning theories. This learning process is characterized by five modes of thinking: enactive, iconic, story-telling, mathematical-thinking, and formal academic writing. The author self-reflects on her learning experience by discussing a few misconceptions she has encountered, and how she has tried to correct the misconceptions. The author designs a framework for her proposed approach to gain ID expertise, and hopes that it can be applicable to other instructional designers. Two other instructional designers have tried this approach in a small scope, and have contributed to building the framework. As the current project tries to initiate a DBR project, a real DBR project will rely on the efforts of many instructional designers who can try this approach over a long period of time. The author discusses the potential for creating a standard DBR documenting instrument

Introducing KHIONE – (Eulerian) Part I of the ice modelling component of TELEMAC

Water Qualit

Effect of flow velocity on clogging induced by coal fines in saturated proppant packs: A transition from surface deposition to bridging

Hydraulic fracturing is a widely used technique to enhance the production of coalbed methane reservoirs. However, a common issue is the invasion of coal fines into proppant packs, leading to pore clogging and reduced conductivity. This study investigated the impact of flow velocity on clogging by coal fines in saturated proppant packs to optimize the flow velocity and alleviate clogging during dewatering. Clogging experiments induced by coal fines were conducted on saturated proppant packs with varying superficial velocities. Throughout each experiment, the permeability and effluent concentration were monitored, and the process of clogging was visually observed using an optical microscope. The experimental results showed that both permeability and effluent concentration initially increased and then decreased with an increase in flow velocity, indicating the existence of a critical flow velocity for minimizing clogging in proppant packs. Microscale observations revealed that the dominant regimes of clogging induced by coal fines at low and high flow velocities were surface deposition and hydrodynamic bridging, respectively; a critical flow velocity was required to induce the occurrence of bridging. Removal efficiencies of coal fines in relation to surface deposition and straining against flow velocity were theoretically analyzed, aiming to provide insights into the mechanisms underlying the impact of flow velocity on clogging. The results showed that the overall removal efficiency by surface deposition and straining decreased with an increase in flow velocity. Theoretical data matched well with the experimental results at low flow velocities but failed to explain the outcomes at high flow velocities, primarily due to the onset of bridging at high flow velocities. This study highlights the necessity of developing a removal efficiency model for bridging to accurately describe clogging by coal fines in proppant packs and provides recommendations for clogging control in proppant packs

Q-Mamba: On First Exploration of Vision Mamba for Image Quality Assessment

In this work, we take the first exploration of the recently popular foundation model, i.e., State Space Model/Mamba, in image quality assessment, aiming at observing and excavating the perception potential in vision Mamba. A series of works on Mamba has shown its significant potential in various fields, e.g., segmentation and classification. However, the perception capability of Mamba has been under-explored. Consequently, we propose Q-Mamba by revisiting and adapting the Mamba model for three crucial IQA tasks, i.e., task-specific, universal, and transferable IQA, which reveals that the Mamba model has obvious advantages compared with existing foundational models, e.g., Swin Transformer, ViT, and CNNs, in terms of perception and computational cost for IQA. To increase the transferability of Q-Mamba, we propose the StylePrompt tuning paradigm, where the basic lightweight mean and variance prompts are injected to assist the task-adaptive transfer learning of pre-trained Q-Mamba for different downstream IQA tasks. Compared with existing prompt tuning strategies, our proposed StylePrompt enables better perception transfer capability with less computational cost. Extensive experiments on multiple synthetic, authentic IQA datasets, and cross IQA datasets have demonstrated the effectiveness of our proposed Q-Mamba.Comment: 17 pages,3 figure

フェミニズムの行方 －ジェイン・オースティン、シャーロット・ブロンテと近代中国女性作家たち [論文要旨及び審査の要旨]

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