8 research outputs found
Time-resolved single-crystal X-ray crystallography
In this chapter the development of time-resolved crystallography is traced from its beginnings more than 30 years ago. The importance of being able to “watch” chemical processes as they occur rather than just being limited to three-dimensional pictures of the reactant and final product is emphasised, and time-resolved crystallography provides the opportunity to bring the dimension of time into the crystallographic experiment. The technique has evolved in time with developments in technology: synchrotron radiation, cryoscopic techniques, tuneable lasers, increased computing power and vastly improved X-ray detectors. The shorter the lifetime of the species being studied, the more complex is the experiment. The chapter focusses on the results of solid-state reactions that are activated by light, since this process does not require the addition of a reagent to the crystalline material and the single-crystalline nature of the solid may be preserved. Because of this photoactivation, time-resolved crystallography is often described as “photocrystallography”. The initial photocrystallographic studies were carried out on molecular complexes that either underwent irreversible photoactivated processes where the conversion took hours or days. Structural snapshots were taken during the process. Materials that achieved a metastable state under photoactivation and the excited (metastable) state had a long enough lifetime for the data from the crystal to be collected and the structure solved. For systems with shorter lifetimes, the first time-resolved results were obtained for macromolecular structures, where pulsed lasers were used to pump up the short lifetime excited state species and their structures were probed by using synchronised X-ray pulses from a high-intensity source. Developments in molecular crystallography soon followed, initially with monochromatic X-ray radiation, and pump-probe techniques were used to establish the structures of photoactivated molecules with lifetimes in the micro- to millisecond range. For molecules with even shorter lifetimes in the sub-microsecond range, Laue diffraction methods (rather than using monochromatic radiation) were employed to speed up the data collections and reduce crystal damage. Future developments in time-resolved crystallography are likely to involve the use of XFELs to complete “single-shot” time-resolved diffraction studies that are already proving successful in the macromolecular crystallographic field.</p
Ethical issues of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia
Since the 1990s there has been an increase in bioarchaeological research in many parts of Southeast Asia by both locals and non-locals. Southeast Asian countries are characterised by varied social, cultural and political histories, but there are also some broad similarities in terms of poor economic development that limits much local research, and strong nationalism and rigid bureaucratic procedures for research. All have implications for non-local and local bioarchaeological research. Despite the growth in bioarchaeological research, the ethics of the practice of bioarchaeology in this region remain relatively underexplored. This chapter presents some of the main ethical issues of research with human remains in the region focusing on the countries of Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines, from a non-local and local researcher viewpoint. We review a range of ethical issues, including the varied way different cultures respond to bioarchaeological work, local-non-local partnership in research, community archaeology, bioarchaeological methods including post-excavation management, and looting of archaeological sites. With the recent development of local expertise in bioarchaeology in the region, the repatriation of skeletal samples to Thailand, the increase in local training, and partnerships between local and non-local bioarchaeologists, there is much promise for the further development of local research in the field