Between self, family and society:Syrian male perspectives on intimate partner relationship negotiation in The Netherlands

This paper seeks to disentangle gendered perspectives on intimate partner relationships after forced migration. It targets lived experiences of young Syrian men in the Netherlands (18-35 years old) and explores the extent to which attitudes, traditions and behaviours in relation to gender- and partner roles are contested, re-produced or transformed in the context of societal change. The study employs a qualitative life course perspective, using interdisciplinary social theory to flesh out the interplay of relevant micro- and macro processes in which intimate partner relationship attitudes, traditions and behaviours are defined. We draw from narrative interviews, themed around core life course principles such as agency, linked lives, and time and place, and use narrative analyses. The paper offers two main contributions. First, we demonstrate that intimate partner relationship negotiation after forced migration is a nuanced, complex and ambiguous process, conditioned by intersections of self, family and society, personal biographies and culturally defined agentic behavior. Hence, the paper stimulates incorporating interdisciplinary social theory in migration research to more adequately capture intercultural experiences of migrants. Second, by scrutinising divergent experiences and strategies, we challenge one-sided, static accounts of immigrant men, and emphasise respondents are active agents that negotiate their contextual positions in the Netherlands as intimate partners, husband and fathers

Crystal structure of quinohemoprotein alcohol dehydrogenase from Comamonas testosteroni - Structural basis for substrate oxidation and electron transfer

Quinoprotein alcohol dehydrogenases are redox enzymes that participate in distinctive catabolic pathways that enable bacteria to grow on various alcohols as the sole source of carbon and energy. The x-ray structure of the quinohemoprotein alcohol dehydrogenase from Comamonas testosteroni has been determined at 1.44 Angstrom resolution. It comprises two domains. The N-terminal domain has a beta-propeller fold and binds one pyrrolo-quinoliue quinone cofactor and one calcium ion in the active site. A tetrahydrofuran-2-carboxylic acid molecule is present in the substrate-binding cleft. The position of this oxidation product provides valuable information on the amino acid residues involved in the reaction mechanism and their function. The C-terminal domain is an a-helical type I cytochrome c with His(608) and Met(647) as heme-iron ligands. This is the first reported structure of an electron transfer system between a quinoprotein alcohol dehydrogenase and cytochrome c. The shortest distance between pyrroloquinoline quinone and heme c is 12.9 Angstrom, one of the longest physiological edge-to-edge distances yet determined between two redox centers. A highly unusual disulfide bond between two adjacent cysteines bridges the redox centers. It appears essential for electron transfer. A water channel delineates a possible pathway for proton transfer from the active site to the solvent.</p

The Dependence of Galaxy Shape on Luminosity and Surface Brightness Profile

For a sample of 96,951 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3, we study the distribution of apparent axis ratios as a function of r-band absolute magnitude and surface brightness profile type. We use the parameter fracDeV to quantify the profile type (fracDeV = 1 for a de Vaucouleurs profile; fracDeV = 0 for an exponential profile). When the apparent axis ratio q_{am} is estimated from the moments of the light distribution, the roundest galaxies are very bright (M_r \sim -23) de Vaucouleurs galaxies and the flattest are modestly bright (M_r \sim -18) exponential galaxies. When the apparent axis ratio q_{25} is estimated from the axis ratio of the 25 mag/arcsec^2 isophote, we find that de Vaucouleurs galaxies are flatter than exponential galaxies of the same absolute magnitude. For a given surface brightness profile type, very bright galaxies are rounder, on average, than fainter galaxies. We deconvolve the distributions of apparent axis ratios to find the distribution of the intrinsic short-to-long axis ratio gamma, assuming constant triaxiality T. For all profile types and luminosities, the distribution of apparent axis ratios is inconsistent with a population of oblate spheroids, but is usually consistent with a population of prolate spheroids. Bright galaxies with a de Vaucouleurs profile (M_r < -21.84, fracDeV > 0.9) have a distribution of q_{am} that is consistent with triaxiality in the range 0.4 < T < 0.8, with mean intrinsic axis ratio 0.66 < gamma < 0.69. The fainter de Vaucouleurs galaxies are best fit with prolate spheroids (T = 1) with mean axis ratio gamma = 0.51.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures, to appear in Ap

Information storage in piezoelectric powders

In this paper we show that a large amount of information can be stored in a sample of piezoelectric powders. The technique used to write and read the information is based on the principle of phonon echos. It is demonstrated that the frequency can serve as an address of a memory and that a word can be written into each address by selecting an appropriate writing pulse sequence. It is also shown that the information contained in one address can be read out quickly and nondestructively

The AARTFAAC 60 MHz transients survey

We report the experimental setup and overall results of the AARTFAAC wide-field radio survey, which consists of observing the sky within 50$^\circ$ of Zenith, with a bandwidth of 3.2$\,$MHz, at a cadence of 1$\,$s, for 545$\,$h. This yielded nearly 4 million snapshots, two per second, of on average 4800 square degrees and a sensitivity of around 60$\,$Jy. We find two populations of transient events, one originating from PSR$\,$B0950$+$08 and one from strong ionospheric lensing events, as well as a single strong candidate for an extragalactic transient, with a peak flux density of $80\pm30$$\,$Jy and a dispersion measure of $73\pm3\,\mathrm{~pc~cm^{-3}}$, We also set a strong upper limit of 1.1 all-sky per day to the rate of any other populations of fast, bright transients. Lastly, we constrain some previously detected types of transient sources by comparing our detections and limits with other low-frequency radio transient surveys.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Published by MNRA